Re:Reading Hayek in Holland
by hogFeast on Thursday August 19, 2021 @02:04PM
(#28237175)
It is also a tax haven, its healthcare system is one of the closest to the US in Europe (to mention something that people in the US are constantly banging on about), and has succeeded by totally opening it's economy to world trade (Netherlands is one of the biggest agricultural exporters in the world, biggest trade surplus as a % of GDP in the developed world)...but, ofc, everything has to been seen through the reductive prism of socialism and capitalism that stopped being relevant decades ago (look at US housing, the only other mortgage market that is as socialist is Denmark, and it isn't as socialist as the US...these things aren't simple).
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Let us not forget, the Netherlands practically invented financial capitalism in the 16th through 18th century. Apart from the well known markets and exchanges they invented the permanently capitalized enterprise with tradeable shares of ownership distinct from management duties. (And colonies in North and South America, Africa and Asia to boot.)
Netherlands practically invented financial capitalism in the 16th through 18th century
And even here, you find that the Dutch also instituted the first real central bank[0], which laissez faire folks would tell you lead to panics and recessions.
Tulipmania[1] happened about twenty years later, but I'm open to believing that was a coincidence.